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If you could live your financial life again, what would you do differently?

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Seigo Tsujimoto
Seigo Tsujimoto
1 month ago

I would start much, much earlier.

Terry Meland
Terry Meland
5 months ago

I would invest 100% of my savings in stocks.
Keep minimum cash and no bonds or other investments.
 
I would do:
* 85% in diversified ETFs under a “buy and hold” (never sell) approach.
* 15% in diversified ETFs under a “market timing” approach.
Follow my indicators and buy and sell for mid-term (4 to 12 months) market moves.
 
The 85% “buy and hold” ETFs would be a mixture of:
* High dividend ETFs like VYM, SDY, DGRO, TDIC, etc. (60% of the 85%).
    Dividends would be re-invested into the ETF.
* Broad market ETFs like SPY (S&P 500) and QQQ (Nasdaq) (40% of the 85%).
 
The 15% “market timing” ETFs would be leveraged ETFs like QLD (2X the NASDAQ) and SSO (2X the S&P 500).
* Use stop losses to limit trading losses.
* Learn and improve over time.

Don Southworth
Don Southworth
1 year ago

Rent my house in California and not sell it.

John Wood
John Wood
1 year ago

Rent in a neighborhood that I wanted to live in before I could afford to buy there, rather than buy in a lesser neighborhood just to own a home (whose value when I sold it ended up being about the same as just renting it).

tshort
tshort
1 year ago

I made all the classic mistakes, and also didn’t have access to after tax 401k/IRA. If I did it over again:

  1. max out ROTH 401k and/or ROTH IRA contributions.
  2. manage IRA contributions so that I could do a mega backdoor ROTH conversion at some point.
  3. Except for maxing out the employee stock purchase plan (which I did and it worked very well), don’t buy individual stocks (I lost 50% in the Dot Bomb collapse) – invest only in index funds and manage the entire portfolio (a Lazy Portfolio at that) to a single asset allocation, set to 80/20 (back when I was in my 30s-40s).
Lehman Brown
Lehman Brown
1 year ago

I would have invested in low-cost index funds, instead of purchasing GE stock through employer. I would have paid taxes on contributions to 401K. I would fully maximize 401k Roth opportunities! I would have been a little more aggressive in stock allocation versus bonds.

Tony Brady
Tony Brady
1 year ago

When I was a younger worker just learning about investing, I bought stocks instead of index funds. I would have also paid greater attention to asset location between my pre-tax and taxable accounts.

Kurkyboy
Kurkyboy
1 year ago

I would have taken my own advice and not traded my accounts as much

Jeff Bond
Jeff Bond
1 year ago

I would confront my now ex-wife about the dramatic change in her spending habits and lack of discipline.

Juan Fourneau
Juan Fourneau
1 year ago

Listened to my gut more when I was in my mid to late twenties. I finally began to make a good living and rather than live frugally I bought a house and a new car. If I had lived like a student for even 5 years while I was still single I could have made some more substantial investments.

Michael1
Michael1
1 year ago

Never carry credit card debt. Haven’t in many years, but didn’t figure this out early enough.

Pat Roach
Pat Roach
1 year ago

Instead of starting drawing social security at age 62, I would have waited until I turned 70.

Jeff
Jeff
1 year ago
Reply to  Pat Roach

If you live long enough you be about the same as if you waited.

Nicholas Clements
Nicholas Clements
1 year ago

I am a conservative investor but I do wish that in my younger years that my portfolio was more heavily weighted towards stocks.

R Quinn
R Quinn
1 year ago

I would have been a bit more aggressive with investments. And I would have used Roth accounts as soon as they were available.

Sonja Haggert
Sonja Haggert
1 year ago

I would save more and learn about stock market investing earlier. We spent too much on mutual fund fees and taxes when we could have been buying stocks.

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